


Feel All Better

by verucasalt123



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Season/Series 09, Caretaker Dean, Caretaker Sam, Community: spnspringfling, Gen, High Castiel, Human Castiel, Illnesses, Intoxication, Sick Castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-18
Updated: 2017-04-18
Packaged: 2018-10-13 18:15:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10519152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verucasalt123/pseuds/verucasalt123
Summary: Cas gets sick, takes too much medication, and provides entertainment.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lullabelle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lullabelle/gifts).



By the time Cas finds his way to a payphone to call Dean, he’s still not very well adapted to the condition of humanity. He’s surprised but comforted when Dean embraces him before either of them says a word. 

Dean’s collected him and taken him back to the bunker, where he receives another enthusiastic and affectionate greeting from Sam. 

He’s wearing stolen clothes. He’s dirty and hungry and (though clearly annoyed by it) has to pee really bad.

Cas can handle the bathroom part himself. Sam shows him how to use the shower because Dean is freaked out about seeing Cas naked. That one time with the bees was enough, really. But that’s all right, Dean’s going to make some food while Cas gets cleaned up. 

Immediate needs taken care of, they move on to a new and unexpected path. Sam’s a little concerned. This place still doesn’t really feel like _home_ to him yet, and adding another person would take some getting used to. But it’s Cas. Dean’s just grateful that he can put his eyes on his best friend and know that he’s (relatively) safe.

Acclimation seems to go in fits and starts; Cas learns four new things in a day, then spends two days sulking because he did something wrong. 

Sam thinks things are going fairly well. It’s nice, watching Cas feel pride in learning simple tasks like making coffee. Dean has an excuse to spend a ton of time in the kitchen so he can prepare a variety of foods and catalog Cas’ reactions. So far his favorites are bacon, raw spinach, tequila, and ice cream.

So it’s all good. Sam takes Cas with him to the grocery store, and it’s like an adventure for Cas.

This uneventful domestic routine is, of course, short-lived. Things like that don’t ever last long for the Winchesters. Even now that there are three of them. 

Dean is worried. Okay, so Dean’s been hovering pretty close to _worried_ ever since he picked Cas up from the parking lot of an isolated gas station. But now…

It starts with a sore throat. They give Cas tea and honey for a day or two. No improvement. 

Then the cough shows up.

Then the fever. 

So yeah, Dean’s worried. Sam’s a little concerned and also slightly amused by the fact that illness turns Cas into a whining, petulant child. Everyone’s fairly calm until the fever. Cas has (obviously) never been sick before, so there’s no way to tell how well his immune system functions. It could be a common upper respiratory virus. It could also be pneumonia. 

Lebanon has no urgent care clinic. It has a hairdresser, a tiny grocery store, some churches, and of course a gun shop. They drive the hour to Hastings to see a doctor. Cas is indignant in the exam room; it seems invasive and humiliating for someone to inspect him in this way. 

He’s got bronchitis. He’s going to take a cough suppressant for a few days so he can get some rest, then they’ll switch to an expectorant so he can cough out all the nasty crap in his chest. Prescriptions filled, the Winchesters and their plus-one head home and hope this won’t last too long. Cas is unbearable, but Dean and Sam are cutting him some slack. This has never happened to him before. Sam thinks Dean should shut up anyway because Dean’s a giant baby if he has a cold. 

It’s quiet back at the bunker. The yelllow-y liquid cough suppressant seems to have worked pretty quickly. 

Except. 

Sam walks back to Cas’ room to check in. As soon as Sam walks in the door, Cas starts giggling uncontrollably. Sam doesn’t see anything that would be funny. 

“You all right?”, he asks, trying to get a good look and see if maybe the fever was making him delirious - that used to happen to Dean when he was a kid sometimes.

Cas is fussing with his phone, and has his laptop open over to his right on the bed. He tells Sam, “I was going to put - uh, play...s’music. But everything’s fuzzy. You’re fuzzy, and this show is making me laugh, the zombies-” He has to stop there, because the laughing overcomes his ability to speak. 

His movements are clumsy, his eyes are glassy, he’s...oh, shit. Sam yells for Dean.

When Dean shows up next to Sam in the doorway, Cas starts laughing even harder. He’s crying. Attempting to regulate his breath. Trying to say something but is hindered by what seems like an altered mental state. 

“I think he might be having some kind of weird reaction to that medication. Where is it?”, Sam asks, knowing Dean had brought it back here when they got home. 

Dean looks across the room. “I set it on that little table by the other side of the bed. Cas, where’s your cough medicine?”

Cas calms a little, then rustles through his blankets to produce the bottle and hold it up. “Found it!”, he exclaims, then squints and says, “These words fffffffff-f-uzzy too, like my phone.”

Reaching over, Sam carefully reads the label. “Jesus, Dean, there’s codeine in this. How much did you give him?”, he asks, realizing that Cas is just… _high_.

“Dude, I didn’t measure it out for him, he’s a grown man.”, Dean replies, a little defensive. Maybe he should have paid closer attention. The bottle is more than a quarter empty, not quite half. 

Sam rolls his eyes and shakes his head. Dean scrubs a hand across his face and says, “Cas, I think you took too much of this.”

They get an odd stare in return. “S’enough. No cough. Just did what you do, if you’re - you - need medicine. Cept not the thing where I yell at you for telling me to take it. ”

It doesn’t take long for Dean and Sam both to realize what Cas means. And he’s right. He’s probably never seen either of them measure out a dose of NyQuil or Robitussin, because they never do. Both just take a swig out of the bottle and throw it back into the med kit (or medicine cabinet, now that they have one of those). 

They’d clearly set a bad example, seeing as how Cas was slurring his words, giggling like a fool, and seemingly not at all upset about it.

“All right, come on. Out of bed, you’re gonna come hang out on the couch so we can keep an eye on you”, Sam says, and watches Cas’ pathetic attempt to take a couple of steps. 

“Floor’s spinny, guys. Be careful. Is it spinny over there?”, Cas asks in a very serious voice. 

Dean tells him the floor’s fine. “Just go slow, you’ll be all right.”

Cas takes two faltering steps, then yells as if there weren’t two people just a few feet away, “ **Carry me!** Got such a fuckin great floor, then you.can.carry.me.” He points vaguely in Sam and Dean’s direction and says, “Big”, then points to himself and says, “Llllittle. _Carry me_ ohhh-kaaaay?” 

It’s a little unusual for Cas to curse but not unheard of, and he normally is a bit more subtle with his sarcasm. Dean’s eyes are the size of dinner plates, so Sam walks over and scoops Cas up. “You’re not little, Cas. And you’re not light, either”, he says, as he angles them out the door, down the hall and to the sofa. 

Moving out of hearing distance but not too far to keep an eye on their impaired roommate, the brothers convene a quick conference. Cas definitely hasn’t swallowed enough codeine to be dangerous. He’ll probably just pass out soon. 

They start up Netflix and turn Cas’ hilarious show back on. Sam never thought Walking Dead was that funny, but Cas clearly disagrees. Dean can’t hold back a chuckle of his own when Cas points at the screen, amused, and says, “Ewwww his eyeball issssss not... in his head. Anymore”, looking at the screen like he was watching a circus performance.

It looks like he’s on the verge of sleep when Cas fixes a stare on Dean. “No more TV, want music. Like from when that one time like on another day, washing the car?”

Dean speaks quickly. “Right, Skynyrd, yeah, let’s get that on”, he says, scrambling for his phone so he can set it up with an aux cord. 

“Noooooo. girl songs. That one girl. You know, the - the, uh, _so hot...can’t, can’t stop, so ri-dic-ul-ousssss_!”

And now it’s Sam’s turn to laugh as he snatches Dean’s phone and scrolls down the list in his iTunes library. And there it is. “The Best Damn Thing”, released 2007. 

“Avril Lavigne? Seriously?”

“Shut the fuck up, Sam”, Dean growls. But Cas is pouting, and it’s too late now anyway. He shakes his head and says, “Just play it.”

They get through “Contagious” and “Hot”, and then three repeats of “Girlfriend” before Cas is soundly sleeping off his high. 

“At least he’s not coughing”, Dean says. 

“You need to get him headphones if he’s going to listen to that on a regular basis”, Sam replies. 

A perfectly normal round of Winchester bickering accompanies a not-coughing and soon to be sober Cas. It’s all gonna be fine.


End file.
